Blackcurrant Wine - Third Bottle (3), 14th August 2021

It is good to be home! The last two weeks have been excellent: a superb week at Rydal followed by another one in the Brecon Beacons, but returning to the Usual is, in some ways, a relief. A quiet night in with Claire, who did not come to Wales, curled up on the sofa watching a movie with the Snarkalong Film Club was absolutely the right thing to do. This time it was Relative Values: a comedy of manners with a terrific cast, led by Julie Andrews. Nothing demanding or noisy at all.

A running stream in the Brecon Beacons

Blackcurrant Wine 2020 - Second Bottle (1), 27th-28th July 2021

I was on hairdressing duties on Tuesday evening. We are shortly to go to Rydal (!) and Claire wanted to re-blue her mohican. The bottle of blackcurrant was opened before the process began. What could possibly go wrong? My task was to paint bleach into the back of Claire's head and then later in the evening (and further down the bottle) to shave the sides of her scalp, leaving a wide blue stripe of hair in the centre. It all looks quite alarming, but in a thoroughly good way. The wine was also excellent and is Claire's favourite of all my brews.

The hairdressing process

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Eleventh Bottle (B5), 27th June 2021

A Sunday bottle of wine. The day had been quiet, though pleasant. We had meant to go to York, but the car being repaired at the garage put a stop to that. Probably it is time to replace it, but that prospect does not fill me with joy. Instead I made a Coffee & Cranberry Loaf.

We drank this blackcurrant wine, which is excellent, to a roast chicken dinner and some of the best gravy that Claire has ever made. It is the redcurrant jelly that makes the difference.

Cranberry & Coffee Loaf

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Tenth Bottle (A4), 12th June 2021

A Saturday bottle of wine. The day had been lovely. I spent most of the morning making an asparagus and emmental quiche - which was a Triumph (he said, modestly). Then Richard & Linda came round for lunch, during which the Triumph was eaten with relish. We stayed outside enjoying a British summer's day and it was great to be entertaining again. Late afternoon I played Mom at Scrabble (always a weekly highlight) and in the evening we drank blackcurrant wine (another Triumph) whilst being disappointed with Gross Pointe Blank - far duller than I remember it being in 1997.

The Triumph

Blackcurrant Wine 2020 - First Bottle (6), 8th-10th April 2021

Claire required something nice to drink after I had forced her to have two sips of Magnolia Petal Wine. Being the loving and considerate husband that I am, I directed her to the blackcurrant wine and whilst Claire was drinking this, I was drinking the Magnolia Petal. There was half a glass of this for me on Saturday night, and it is a pleasant vintage of blackcurrant - much like every other blackcurrant made (a remarkably consistent wine ingredient). I drank my ration whilst watching The Core with the Snarkalong Film Club - a truly silly disaster movie with the concept that the Earth's core has stopped turning and only a nuclear bomb will get it going again. Hilarious and predictable.

I started reading 'Knowledge of Angels' by Jill Paton Walsh - and the pages above are its opening. I think they are stunning, and I thoroughly recommend this book.

Blckcurrant Wine 2019 - Ninth Bottle (A3), 28th March 2021

Sunday was a day full of domestic chores. The best of these was making Blondies with Peanut butter-cream icing (calorie content: astronomical) but there was also much sweeping and tidying. Not that there is anyone allowed to visit until 17th May, but sometimes I get fed up of living in grime. 

In the evening I opened this bottle of blackcurrant wine - which was as tasty a bottle as blackcurrant can be - and we had a beef & spring onion stir-fry courtesy of Padian Foods. Blisteringly hot as ever - which is not a bad thing. Then Line of Duty and a sleep interrupted by two mice gifted by Wiggy.

Blondies - they were fabulous!

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Eighth Bottle (B4), 20th February 2021

This was such a good bottle of blackcurrant wine - sharp and fruity with a taste of summer. We drank much of it whilst watching Snakes on a Plane as a Snarkalong Film Club choice. The movie was predictably entirely ridiculous (and ridiculously entirely predictable). That is not to say that I didn't enjoy it however. About two thirds of the way through, Wiggy entered the room with a large and feisty mouse. She promptly dropped it and 20 hours later, it has yet to be found.

Wiggy - a couple of hours before the Mouse

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Seventh Bottle (B1), 15th January 2021

Having had a massively busy December where I was working 1,000 miles an hour, it is nice to have a gentle January. This week I was able to take Claire's birthday off entirely (and made a Swiss roll!) and on Friday lunchtime Claire and I went for a walk in Moortown Park, which had turned into a winter wonderland. The amount of snow we have had this week has been unusual.

In the evening I cooked a tortilla (chorizo makes everything better), we watched ER and drank this bottle of blackcurrant wine. It was an unexciting yet thoroughly satisfying day.

 

The Swiss Roll that I made

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Sixth Bottle (A2), 11th December 2020

In ordinary years, it would have been my Work Christmas Party. For obvious reasons, that is not happening and I suspect that we are not having any virtual event either. Certainly nothing has been said. Mind you, I always think that I am going to enjoy the Work Christmas Do far more than the presented reality. Every year I leave early, having drunk too much, feeling deafened by the Disco. This year, though, I was at home drinking a fine bottle of Blackcurrant Wine watching an episode of ER with my wife. Not a bad alternative.

Wiggy - taken on 11th December

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Fifth Bottle (A6), 20th November 2020

Friday nights need a bottle of wine and this one more than most. It had not been a bad day at all - but it was one of intense concentration. I had spent most of the day drafting a difficult report on title and by six o'clock my head was spinning. Blackcurrant wine reversed the direction of that spin - it is an excellent bottle. We spent much of the evening watching the pilot episode of ER. I had never seen ER, and was a little resistant, fearing it might be dull and dated. Instead, I was gripped throughout.

Chimneys in Leeds (actually taken on 21 November)

Blackcurrant Wine 2017 - Eleventh Bottle (B3), 16th-17th October 2020

Reading about previous bottles of this vintage, and on the strength of this bottle, I am surprised that I waxed lyrical about 2017's blackcurrant wine. This particular bottle has acquired that sherry taste that old bottles of home made wine can get. For some flavours this is a bonus. Blackcurrant is not one of those flavours. We still drank it though - grumbling as we went. 

Friday was my final day of a week's holiday and it hasn't been the best - what with Kato dying and all. Still, I managed a pleasant walk from Otley and along the Chevin and it was not a bad day.

Views over Wharfedale from the Chevin

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Final Bottle (A6), 16th-17th September 2020

Sausages require a red wine and I gave Claire a free choice of which red wine to choose, which is how we ended up with blackcurrant. She was not in the greatest of spirits - a combination of Brexit, Covid 19, the upcoming US election (Trump will get in again, of course) and despair at research facilities at Leeds University all combined to make opening a bottle of wine a necessity. Both nights I have worked till past 6, so I did not discourage this. The wine itself was a fruity and tasty as ever, but perhaps not the best red to go with sausages.

Another Leeds doorway, taken on 17th September

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Third Bottle (A1), 4th-5th September 2020

I should have started a week's holiday on Friday. Not that I particularly wanted one, but Work passed and edict that all must take two weeks between July and September. I planned, therefore, on a week's walking holiday in North Wales. However, now is a particularly poor time for me to take a week off, so I have won favour by cancelling something originally unwanted. Instead of being on holiday I opened a bottle of blackcurrant wine, drunk to leftover curry and an episode of Green Wing.

Crab Apples in our garden taken on 5 September

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Second Bottle (B6), 1st-2nd August 2020

This bottle has come at the end of a week's holiday. That week should have been one of hedonism at Rydal Hall, but for obvious reasons that was cancelled. It has been a good week, despite that - but by Saturday (when this bottle was opened) I was all walked-out. 

Mom & Pop came over for lunch and I spent much of the rest of the day harvesting redcurrants and watching Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists (and blackcurrant wine went well with this). We finished the bottle tonight, which has been another lazy day - but now I'm facing Work tomorrow. Eeek.

Redcurrants - harvested

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - First Bottle (A5), 14th-15th July 2020

 I have made another fine vintage of blackcurrant wine. This is one of the most drinkable of all the wines that I make - in that there is a fruit-sweetness to it and that gives it a "to be glugged rather than savoured" quality. Therefore, it is of some surprise that we drank it over two nights.

Tuesday nights are currently Broadchurch nights. Claire has not seen it before, whereas I have. Knowing who the killer is does not make it less enjoyable, which indicates that it is well written, directed and performed. The clues to the killer's identity are subtle in the extreme.

Rosebay Willow Herb, taken on 14 July

If you want to see how I made this wine, click here.

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Eleventh Bottle (A2), 12th July 2020

Not drunk, but given away. We went round to Lindsay and Anthony's on Sunday afternoon to pick blackcurrants for this year's wine and in payment I took this bottle along. The weather was delightful and we had a lovely hour or so chatting in the garden and plucking fruit from its bush. For a short while, everything felt normal.

Taken on 12 July - this is, in fact, Liz and David

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Tenth Bottle (B3), 2nd June 2020

We had the warmest, driest Spring experienced since 2018. Just before the weather turned, we had a Government Approved Social Gathering in our garden. Regulations say that you can now have meetings of up to 6 people remaining socially distant outside - and that is what we did. David, Liz, Angie and Phil all came round, pizzas were delivered and we got through rather more wine than is sensible for a Tuesday, including this bottle. It was a lovely, lovely evening.

Setting up our garden on 2nd June

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Ninth Bottle (B6), 25th May 2020

This bottle was curiously sherry-like, as if it had been maturing for years, when in fact it is quite recent. The thick, fortified taste was not a bad thing at all. I opened it on a warm bank-holiday evening and we drank it to sausages, mash and onion gravy, before going for a walk round the neighbourhood, peering into other people's gardens and generally being nosy. Having a leisurely walk on a warm, light evening with my wife is one of life's great pleasures.

Evening sunlight on our garden

taken on 25th May

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - The Making Of...

We very much need a larger freezer. And we need to defrost the current one. At this time of year, when soft fruit is abundant, a deep and empty freezer is what one requires. Ours is standard-sized and full. This wine is a direct result.

On Saturday 12th July, Claire and I went round to Lindsay and Antony's house to pick blackcurrants. It was an afternoon well spent in their garden, enjoying the sunshine and seeing friends somewhere other than on a computer screen. We mostly attained social distancing, but we were still in their company, and that was lovely. Their blackcurrants were not as plentiful as in previous years - I suspect that the pruning shears have been out - but we came away with 2 lbs 6 oz.

Our blackcurrants are later, and my original intention was to keep Lindsay and Antony's fruit in the freezer until ours were ready. However, this gave no room for freezing bread and therefore Something Needed To Be Done. I decided that instead of pure blackcurrant, I would bulk up what we had with 10 oz of raspberries. Our raspberry canes have been prolific this year, requiring a daily pick, and the fruit that we cannot have on our porridge, we freeze.

On Friday 17th July I took the blackcurrants and raspberries out of the freezer and left them to defrost in a bowl. I mashed them that evening, poured over 6¼ pints of boiling water and added 2 lbs 12 oz sugar (I think - I am writing this a week later). On Saturday morning I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, pectolase and nutrient.

Over the week I was particularly dilatory in stirring the wine - maybe it got three stirs - and really I should have put it in the demijohn on Wednesday. But it has been a busy week at work, so I left this until Thursday evening. This process was unremarkable - neither pleasantly speedy nor stultifyingly, arse-achingly slow. I have ended up with a demijohn full of purple-bordering-on-the-black wine. I suspect that our blackcurrant bushes will not supply enough fruit this year for a pure blackcurrant wine.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here

Blackcurrant Wine 2017 - Tenth Bottle (A2), 18th June 2020

I do make a good bottle of blackcurrant wine. It has all the fruit taste you want and this vintage is smooth and easy to drink. Possibly too easy. We drank the bottle on Thursday night on a day where very little of interest happened. The most exciting thing was a trip out to the Book Shop to buy books. Whilst this might sound unremarkable, this week was the first week that shops selling non-essential items were allowed to open since Lockdown began. Some might argue that books were never non-essential.

Two more doors I like 

(taken on 17th June)